Taken by my mate

Covyn

When I was closer I could hear the growls and barks of the other wolven fighting.

‘Ellion!’ I barked out.

‘Where the fuck have you been! We’ve got undead wolves eating our boarder, and what was previously Alpha Stone’s pack is invading the holes they’re making.”

“Previously?”

“Alpha Stone and his entire convoy is dead. They left the boarder but didn’t make it out of our territory. Blake, Travis, and Colin are gone along with them. McLain was sent back to deliver a message”

“What was it?”

“… what?”

I was still running around the property to join them , and it must have been chaos for for Ellion to be so distracted. “The message?”

“Oh, something about anyone who lays a hand on Novaestarus should have never been allowed to breathe another day but all wolven look the same. Did you know that was her real name?”

A felt a small amount of relief with that, that meant it couldn’t be Ellion or McLain.

“She told me earlier. How’s the barrier holding up?”

“Barely a point to right now, there’s enough of them in to cause problems, though I guess there is still the dragons that it’s keeping at bay…”I swear I could hear the eye roll that he made ironically.

“Where is Nova?”

“Spencer and Lucas have her but she refuses to go inside. Says at least if she’s outside her brothers will stay back but she doesn’t look great,” Ellion’s worry was second to the ongoing fight and as I came around the corner it was clear why.

Five of the wolven with red eyes looked to be, as he said, literally eating the invisible boarder on this side of the property but everywhere else Wolven we’re fighting and tearing into each other. I could recognize many of the corpses that bit and attacked the invisible wall like it was solid. Markus, a warrior we had lost last year, had eyes of the same bright crimson and spit frothed at his mouth like he was venous. Beside him were the Frei brothers, lost earlier in the year on a relief mission. They too looked.. well, healthy, strong… except for their insatiable hunger for magical energy

Around them there was the body of a wolven, locking in a grip with another. The brown wolf had died first from the angle of his neck, but the darker wolf had bled out shortly after from the wounds inflicted over his side. The smell of blood wasn’t strong like being hit, but strong in waves that washed over me with the rolling breeze to turn my stomach. I saw Ellion in a fight with another wolf, his side already showing injury from the fight before, and I worried for Daley who was probably at a window watching.

I nearly diverted my course toward him, but I needed to find Nova and then.. kill , her previous mate if I was going to save my pack from dragons. I didn’t think they would obey by their ‘staying out of her sight’ rule once that barrier fell, and if she was the only thing holding it up right now I needed to see her first.

‘Spencer, Lucas!’ I called out through the link hearing Lucas reply right away and I followed it to find them tucked away at the back.

Lucas stood in his wolf form, watching over them as Spencer held her hair back while she threw up into the grass. No one was near them, but Ellion had been right in saying she looked wrecked. Still the minute she saw me kneel down beside her I felt her fist slam into my nose.

“You piece of shit! What did you promise!?”

“Nov…”

“You shut your damn mouth! I told you not to call me that again,” she interrupted me. She looked furious, but I could feel the sorrow in her chest. “Look me in the eyes, and tell me you didn’t,” she begged.

“Please Covyn. Tell me you didn’t take the deal.”

She was so desperate for the words I knew I couldn’t say. I took her face in mine, her skin pale from the nausea, and rubbed her cheeks with my thumbs. Her hands move to lay over mine as she held me there, pleading for me to say it. I noticed how her cheeks dipped as all the happiness seemed to leave her with my hesitation to answer. She looked so weak and tired, and I considered lying, but I told her the truth.

I shook my head. “I can’t do that.”

Her hands fell away like weighted pendulums, pulled by gravity to rest in the grass heavily at her sides. “It… was all for nothing.”

“What did you do?” Spencer demanded, now looking at me as she looked away.

“The only way to keep her safe, give her back her Phoenix, and stop this attack on our people was to give up her old mate,” I told him softly, but we didn’t have time for this.

I needed to figure out how I would narrow down who it was. If they didn’t give themselves up, if I didn’t notice who reacted to her name the first time they heard it I could never identify them. If her brothers saw them first we were done for.

The one for the many.

I tried to remind myself that I would do the same for her. If it could be me, it would have already been me. But it has to be them, and now everyone will die unless they do.

“Who is it?” Spencer whispered, looking around us like he too worried they would take off.

I shook my head. “I don’t know.”

“How will you figure it out?”

“Her name, her real name, it will break the spell in the deal that erased their memories.”

She looked up at me again, shaking her head one last time in her plea. “Please Covyn, don’t..”

“Novaesarus.”

Her eyes looked like I had stabbed her in the chest. Tears started to well in her corners but never fell before I lost sight of them completely behind her hands.

She was shaking her head into her hands hopelessly, “I can’t watch them die, I won’t be able to survive this.”

“Novaestarus,” Spencer said slowly and her head picked up.

Her eyes grew large and the tears were gone. I felt her heart pick up as she turned to him, but he was looking at her with the same bewilderment.

“Ambrose?” Her voice was so soft, so full of wonder, and then a small laugh moved from her lips before she covered them quickly with her hand. “My laendi.”

No, it can’t be.

His hand moved up to cup her cheek, to touch her skin, and brush hair from her face. “My Angel, you gave up too much for me.”

She was shaking her head again, and now all of those tears started to fall. “It was the easiest split second decision I’ve made my entire life.”

It can’t be.

“How!?” I demanded, but neither turned to me, her hands holding his on her face.

“When we were at the club, I wasn’t judging you for having a mate who was human or a dancer. I was surprised because I had remembered meeting my mate believing she was the same,” Spencer told me absently. “I remembered so little about her, but when that came out it triggered the memory.”

“Fate, that bitch,” she laughed ironically. “It was the other time that I used my real name for a job to get my dad’s attention, like I told you,” Novaestarus added. “But I met Ambrose, and I never wished so badly that my dad wasn’t around. Me and my mom had already created a number of barriers for different wolven. In the beginning your kind was so weak, we had to select the strongest to protect to give your species any hope. Ambrose’s pack wasn’t of those so fortunate, but I did my best with what I had. We had many months of peace, but my family didn’t think anyone was good enough for me, especially wolven.

When they attacked I fought with the wolven, but my family had recruited a small mob of Fae in their natural form, when their bodies were much stronger than what they’ve become. They weren’t even looking at who they were killing… Ambrose pushed me out of the way from a spray of poison darts and got five of them.” She looked sadly at him, her eyebrows pinching together “Your mate didn’t die, you did.”

“You saved me, but I felt you die inside when they took your Phoenix, you may have lived but my pain was much shorter.” He smiled before leaned into place a brief, gentle kiss on her lips. “And I’d do it again. Lucas, come and restrain her.”

“What?” Her voice quivered and her eyes darted madly between us. “No Ambrose, please no.”

Lucas was behind her, his face sad and regretful as he grabbed her arms and held her back. “I’m sorry Luna.”

She thrashed and screamed against him, kicking her heals into his shins. I couldn’t look at her. That much raw unadulterated emotion put my stomach into knots and my heart in a vice.

“Alpha don’t drag it out, hurry up.” Spencer was staring at me, and I hadn’t even realized I’d pulled out the dart.

My hand was steady despite the screaming in my ears. Wolven around me we’re still fighting and Novaestarus’s heart broke in my chest deeper with every second. The blood rushed to my ears like it was trying to help me focus by drowning everything out.

I placed my hand on Spencer’s shoulder, giving it a light squeeze. He didn’t deserve this, no one did, but especially not him. My hand poised to stab him with the dart.

Everything was happening so quickly. Six minutes ago I had been getting the first updates from Ellion and now I was killing the only other close friend I’d ever had. An hour ago Nova and I had finally connected. I had collected her from the gym and we had our first real conversation together, before her insistence on making a physical connection.

Now tears streamed, desperate and angry from her eyes as she watched me poised to kill someone that had already sacrificed their life for her before. She would never forgive me, and I didn’t want her to anymore. For this, I deserved everything fate lined up for me.